Open Source Content Management System for content ...

Open Source Content Management System for content development: a comparative study

D. P. Tripathi Assistant Librarian Biju Patnaik Central Library

NIT Rourkela dptnitrkl@

Designing dynamic and static web pages have been possible with many good software like Frontpage, Dreamweaver etc. but gradually it became difficult for web developers to design pages due to dynamic nature of these software and different file formats. But evolvement of open source content management system such as Joomla, Drupal, Wordpress, Plone, DotNetNuke etc. have been found as an alternative to this. This paper deals with comparative study between Joomla and Drupal. The basic objective of this paper is to find out the best content management system for content development based on selected criteria which includes installation, platform support, browser support, documentation, community support, modules, extensions, user management, usage, design, performance, scalability etc.

Keywords: Content Management System, Joomla, Drupal

Introduction:

There has been tremendous change in information generation, distribution and access in the present information society which has affected most of the humans life, the same way, there has been affect and growth in Information on the web also which has made the searching more complex. Due to Information explosion, a new set of problem has arrived for the administrator who produces and manages the content. So, a system which can allow to manage, create and distribute various forms of content was needed, thus CMS was created.

Joomla and Drupal are two most popular open-source content management systems to design powerful and dynamic websites. Both have similarity in nature such as open licenses, strong community support for further development, LAMP-based (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) hosting architecture & environments. Joomla and Drupal, both are also flexible and able to deliver content management functionality with ease.

Organizations as well as service providers such as library looking for a content management system to develop a website always keep them on top choices due to its systems value, efficiency and capabilities. Though, there are many similarities between Joomla and Drupal even then differences in implementation processes, methods of development, support requirements and specific feature implementation costs can make one or the other more suitable for specific purpose of an organization or library.

This paper describes about the differences between Joomla and Drupal for the content development and involvement of costs. This information is provided for web developers, library professionals, IT department heads etc. who are facing the difficulties while choosing the choice between Joomla and Drupal. Reading this paper, one should be in better position to understand the differences between these two CMS.

Content Management System:

A system which is used to manage the content is called as Content Management System which consists of two elements: the Content Management Application (CMA) and the Content Delivery Application (CDA). The element of Content Management Application allows the web developer or author (who may not be familiar with Hypertext Markup Language (HTML)) to manage the creation, modification, and removal of content from a web site without having the expertise of HTML or web designing. The element of Content Delivery Application uses and compiles that information to update the web site.

An individual can use a template as well as wizard and other tools to create or modify web content with its web publishing feature. Documents including electronic and scanned paper can be formatted into HTML or PDF using format management feature for the website. The content can also be updated to new version using revision control feature. Content Management Systems have additional features such as indexing, searching and retrieval. A Content Management System indexes all data available on the site. Individual can then search for data using keywords, which the CMS system retrieves. A Content Management System consists of different subsystems that interact with each other:-

Collection Management Publishing

Need of Content Management Systems Content Management System is the fastest way to create content and update the website. It gives freedom to create new pages in one click, and inactive unused pages, without worrying about disturbance in the design. A website holder need not to pay every time he wants to modify the content of his website. It also saves money and time.

A powerful content management system has the following advantages. CMS is generally web-based and it can be accessed over network system through browser. CMS allows to add, change and remove the text, images, and videos. CMS allows to edit the page titles, descriptions and URLs. CMS allows to create or delete the new category or page in the website. CMS allows to edit the tag. CMS also allows to change the text of the navigation bar.

A CMS keeps websites well organized, increases the data security, and reduces the site maintenance costs. Several open source content management systems such as Joomla, Drupal, Wordpress, Plone, DotNetNuke etc. are available that may be of much use while designing a website.

Joomla: Joomla is an award winning open source content management system which is written in PHP scripting language and uses MySQL database for the backend. Joomla is gaining more popularity among users due to ease of usability and extensibility. More than 5000 extensions and modules enhances the functionality of the core Joomla package. The important feature is that it can be installed and run on different operating systems such as Linux, Windows or Macintosh and can be distributed under General Public License (GPL) means it is free to use. Model-View-Controller (MVC) design pattern is mainly responsible for advanced component of Joomla. It contains the basic features such as blogs, RSS feeds, caching, search functionality, printable versions of pages, create and manage menus, administer the system and support for language internationalization. Database which is used in Joomla can be utilized for dynamic

formatting. Look and feel of Joomla can be customized using templates which are composed of XHTML block and in line tagged element. The whole system consists of two types of pages: Categories and Articles.

Joomla File Structure

At the time of installation of Joomla, some of the important file will be created either on the local machine or on the server. The example is given below showing how each folder has all the important documentation structured and organized.

DRUPAL

Fig-1: Joomla File Structure.

Drupal is also an open source content management system which is written in PHP and uses MySQL or PostgreSQL. It can be installed on different operating system such as Linux, Windows or Macintosh. Drupal is distributed under General Public License and is free to download. The Drupals architecture has been designed in such a way that the three different layers work independently and correlate with each other to give the final output. These three layers are the content which generate the website.

Fig-2: Drupal File Structure

Methodology to compare:

Internal and external variables have been the biggest challenges in comparison of two fullfeatured content management system. These variables are mainly responsible for implementation processes and real cost involved in implementation. In addition, one system may be better suited than the other to handle a particular requirement of the website, even though both are capable of supporting it.

When we compare two content management systems, it requires a deep familiarity with both platforms and experience with multiple deployments with special requirements. It is also important to understand that how a particular CMS can fit into the context of a project and can go a long ways toward effectively managing integration costs, support and ongoing maintenance.

Both Joomla and Drupal have developed several versions in past few years. Comparison about capabilities and details of two content management systems relate to the most recent, stable, long-term-support releases i.e. Drupal 7 and Joomla 3, respectively. Both Joomla and Drupal are very easy to learn and deploy.

Setup and Configuration of Hosting Environment:

A number of tasks involve to create the environment for web hosting which includes selection of hardware and system configuration, operating system and installation of software on webserver and configuration & network setup.

Joomla runs well on any properly configured system with Apache and PHP.

Drupal runs well on properly configured server same as Joomla.

Environment setup and configuration costs for hosting Joomla or Drupal locally or on web server are effectively the same. However, for large-scale websites that require load balancing across servers, as well as projects that must support multi-site capabilities, Drupal may require less time for server planning, setup and deployment.

Installation of CMS and Configuration:

Installation process for both Joomla and Drupal is almost same. The process involves uploading files to your server (hosting environment), create database for the CMS then visit URL at the install location (localhost or web address) and walk through a series of step by step configuration. Once the installation is complete, a default version of the CMS is available at the install location, and from there, it can be further configured, customized and populated with content.

Joomla installation is straightforward and nearly all steps take place within Joomlas step-bystep installation process. After successful installation, it provides a default version of both the front end and back end sides of Joomla. In addition, Joomla also provides options to work with demo content as part of the installation process, which provides freedom for implementers to works easily with example site.

Drupal installation is also straightforward but it requires minor server-side manipulation of file permissions and file names (in case of installation through control panel) and then the process is very similar to a Joomla installation. Initial Drupal configuration settings are

implemented via control panels and include things like front page designation, cache settings and basic site information.

Process of base installation of the content management system is similar between Joomla and Drupal and the time required for installation is essentially the same for both.

Content Types and Structures

The construction of well-organized website with rich content provides a versatile and stable platform for growth of website content. Implementation of content types and structures includes setting out the nature of the content the site is to display, as well as creating the hierarchical structures used to organize and display that content.

Joomla includes several core types of content which includes Articles, Contacts, Banners, Newsfeeds and Weblinks. Each of Joomlas core content types contains capabilities and settings supporting that specific type of use, and they are all available as soon as Joomla is installed. It uses a nested category hierarchy for organizing its content as default method. A single content item can stay at any level of Joomla category tree. Joomla can have unlimited number of categories and articles.

Using specific set of tools, site structure are planned and built in Drupal. The site designed with Drupal requires expertise and can support very high versatility, many different use cases, and extremely complex site.

Joomla is considered less expensive and much faster to implement structured site content. Most of the sites designed with Joomla employ its general-purpose article content type as the main method for containing web page content to keep things organized using the default categories/subcategories. Whereas Drupal websites require implementers to plan and create content types first before meaningful content build-out can begin. This process requires enough time for specialized content items and complex website. In general Drupal requires 50% more time than the time required in Joomla for site structure construction.

Site Design and Layout

Both Joomla and Drupal have some common characteristics and contain systems for managing the layout of site elements, as well as implementing completely custom web designs with the help of HTML and pre-defined layouts.

Joomla has pre-defined structure and it uses ,,Template to control site design and layout. It includes two front-end templates for users and two back-end templates for administrative area at the time of installation. Joomla administrator control the template selection through template manager at the back end of Joomla.

Drupal uses "Themes" to customize a websites design and layout through conventions and processes focused around discrete sets of files in a Drupal installation. By default, Drupal ships with four in-built Themes, any of which can be extended or customized by spawning off a copy, registering the copy within Drupal under a new system name, and then adjusting CSS files and template files (named with *.tpl.php file name extensions in Drupal). A top-level *.info file declares the Theme within Drupal; references CSS, JavaScript and other files used within the Theme; and defines page layout areas, which Drupal calls "Regions."

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